


at the bottom of the box

by yawnnnn



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Character Study, Falling In Love, Falling Out of Love, Gay Komaeda Nagito, Heavy Angst, Hinata Hajime Tries, Hope, How Do I Tag, Hurt No Comfort, Inspired by the Legend of Pandora's Box (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Kamukura Izuru Has Feelings, Kamukura Izuru Is Bad At Feelings, Komaeda Nagito As The Servant, Komaeda Nagito Being Komaeda Nagito, Komaeda Nagito Is Obsessed With Hope, Komaeda Nagito Needs a Hug, Komaeda Nagito's Luck Cycle, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Smut, Philosophical in a way, Quote, it kinda sucks, losing a loved one, porcelain dolls, this is literally only my third fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yawnnnn/pseuds/yawnnnn
Summary: How curious, that the person he had once loved stood in front of him now, and yet he didn’t feel a thing.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito, Kamukura Izuru/Komaeda Nagito, Komaeda Nagito & Nanami Chiaki
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	at the bottom of the box

**Author's Note:**

> I highly recommend listening to creepy music box music on youtube while you read. Its what I listened to while writing this, and I think it really helped set the mood and atmosphere of this fic.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy this sort-of character study of Nagito along with side Komahina and Kamukoma.
> 
> SPOILERS FOR SDR2, NAGITO'S FREE TIME EVENTS, DR3 (DESPAIR ARC) AND ULTRA DESPAIR GIRLS AHEAD

It was an odd thing, how the person proclaimed by man to be a beacon of light could look so full of darkness. How eyes meant to be full of joy and hope could be so cat-like; pupils dilated and red iris flaring in the light of a fire. 

He had always envisioned that the so-called saviour of this desolated excuse of a planet would be an angel, so divine that even any existing god dare not compare. To tell him that the empty silhouette on the horizon was the one? To tell him that the man who felt so hollow--  _ so needing of a soul of his own _ \-- was the one who, even after plan A, plan B, plan C crumbled to rubble, would still be a flashlight in this never ending darkness?

It was an ink stain. An ink stain on Nagito’s ideal of the one he so admired.

Amusing, how the ultimate hope was so similar to that stain, ink-black hair forcing the wind to be it’s tango partner, ink-black suit being so crisp without effort, ink black soul seeping into his very being. 

Ink-black ideals that revolved around anything but hope.

\---

_ Nagito observes in silence as the sun sets, defining the dark silhouette before him. An opportunity wasted, a day gone by. But did it really matter? Something as trivial as approaching an empty shell? _

_ \--- _

Hope was such an expressive thing. It could be found under a corpse, but also on the soil of a forgotten grave from centuries ago. Hope could be found in the most obvious places, yet it took such assertive eyes to even catch a glimpse of it. It expressed itself through art, through song, through fire, through blood. It expressed itself through hijackers and meteorites, through parent’s dead bodies and a child left alone. Even through simple things like dead dogs and lottery tickets. Despair was easy to see in situations like these, and yet hope always shined through in the end. 

Hope was always so expressive in the way it appeared.

So why was he so apathetic? 

Why was he so inexpressive, so devoid of any movement, so… standstill? 

Even right next to him, there was no warmth between them. No, body heat simply could not be shared by the stoic hope and the living corpse. Even if the warmth was able to penetrate this invisible forcefield, Nagito wouldn’t doubt that he was too numbed in his brain and body to feel it reach him. 

Nothing could really feel these days. All of them, dead and alive, were no better than inanimate objects. 

\---

_ Nagito watches the magic show as the moon miraculously levitates into the sky. Another day gone, but not as if it truly mattered. After all, what was the purpose of holding a hand that held no warmth? _

_ \--- _

Until now, he had always liked pretty things. Inanimate objects, nature, people, a student from the reserve course. 

But something he had always found truly fascinating was dolls. Until now, he had always had a peculiar interest in the fake humans. They never failed to be unsettling, beaded eyes staring into his own. Hands frozen still, until he forced them to budge. Clothing hand tailored for something that didn’t even move. 

Nonetheless, countless children still found pleasure, entertainment, and  _ hope  _ in those emotionless faces. Porcelain faces were so intriguing. The way they could crack under pressure, the way that beyond the surface of the smooth exterior lay something dark. 

Porcelain dolls were inherently the creepiest of them all, but Nagito loved them all the same. They were outcasts, only fondled over by old ladies who really just pretended to love them. 

Deep down, he was sure the elderly knew that if the one they so desperately flattered even took a small liking to the fortune they brought, they’d simply be betrayed in the end. The porcelain doll would end up falling, or smashing their feet, all because of the misfortune that stalked it. 

The porcelain doll would then avoid everyone due to the thought of its creepy exterior cracking and breaking, falling into the abyss. 

Due to the fear that its bad luck would only bring destruction. 

Due to the fear that good luck would follow and then punish them once again.

The hand he was holding certainly belonged to a porcelain doll. The one next to him was artificial, fake, only hoping to somehow recreate the person it was modeled after; the better version of him, that everyone, that Nagito, had been so endeared with. 

The better version, who didn’t think they were good enough.

The better version, who he wasn’t able to give enough confidence. 

The better version, who left him and the young girl waiting for him to come back.

He never did.

Nagito had always thought that porcelain dolls were pretty, but when he looked up at the flawless, porcelain exterior of the face that owned the hand enveloped in his own, he didn’t think it was pretty at all. He thought it was horrifying. He thought that the imperfections had made it perfect, but those were gone now.

And it was all his fault.

Nagito grips the hand he is holding, and finally lets his guard down, tears falling endlessly, like gushing waterfalls. But the hand doesn’t budge. It doesn’t budge, and neither does his mouth, wordless emotions permeating the air. 

\---

_ The porcelain doll doesn’t budge, not until the moon rises into the sky, and he is left alone once again. But did it really ever mean anything to him? Did spending time with the empty shell of the one he loved ever feel the same? _

_ Did it ever feel the same as when he used to lean on him? _

_ \--- _

Shoulders. Deep down, he was sure he had always noticed them, but he only ever realized that day. That fateful day when his eyes widened and his hands started shaking in anticipation, and it was all he could do to quiet his heart from beating as loud as a fire alarm. On that day, he had finally come to accept the truth he’d been hiding; the truth of his infatuation with  _ him _ . 

That day, when he left, Nagito was almost tempted to follow him, to call after him, but he couldn’t even manage to stretch a mere finger. All he could do was wait behind as the one with olive eyes took a step, and then another, all the way to the exit. Nagito had never quite said it out loud in his mind, but looking at him from a distance now, he couldn’t help but note his shoulders.

His shoulders would’ve been so broad and confident if Nagito had just been able to reach out to him, even just a little bit.

But his shoulders remained slouched, insecure, just like his own.

They were far more broad now, but he didn’t like it.

Those broad, tense shoulders made everything feel so wrong. Even as he leaned on them as he had so happily done before, it wasn’t the same at all. His old friend’s slouch had made it so difficult for the taller of the two to lean onto, but now it was perfect. Perfect… so perfect it didn’t even cause the same flush of embarrassment when he had to stretch his neck to reach the bent shoulders.

This didn’t make him secure. It didn’t make him feel better. And worst of all, that over-glorified symbol didn’t even blink an eye. There was no comforting ruffling of hair when his tears fell, only heartbreaking silence that passed between them.

\---

_ Nothing he does will ever bring him back, Nagito knows. His eyelids flicker between light and darkness. He had hoped the light would still come back as it did now, but the darkness in his vision was overwhelming it all, making everything a delirious blur.  _

_ That night, his dreams were full of the one thing he could not have. But, the simple kiss that he had dreamed of was far out of his grasp by now. _

_ \--- _

The raven haired male had spoken to him only twice during the time they’d known one another. Once, giving him his name, and the other, when he had started crying for the third time in a today.

That time, he hadn’t said words of comfort as the brunette would have, like “don’t talk about yourself like that,” or “it’s gonna be ok.” The words he said weren’t even his own, rather, they were the words of another.

That day, he had been wiping tears after tears from his face, such an abundance of tears that one would think it was raining, and he was in need of an umbrella. That’s when  _ he _ had turned to Nagito, eyes glaring and hand against his own cheek.

“He turned away, and suddenly she thought about the old children's story, where the stupid girl opens the box that God gave her, and all the evils of the world fly out, except Hope, which stays at the bottom; and she wondered what Hope was doing in there in the first place, in with all the bad things. Then the answer came to her, and she wondered how she could've been so stupid. Hope was in there because it was evil too, probably the worst of them all, so heavy with malice and pain that it couldn't drag itself out of the opened box.”

At Nagito’s confused expression, he let out a sigh, and only opened his mouth to say one more thing.

“It was written by K.J. Parker, and yet it so accurately describes what I wish to tell you. That is all.”

And with the gentle flip of his hair, he briskly sat up and walked away, shoulders broad and unnerving. 

_ If I had just reached out… _

_ If I just move my hand to grab his… _

_ If I could just… _

Nagito held  _ his  _ wrist firmly in his own, trembling, confused, shaken.  _ He… _ he could have escaped his grasp at any time, and yet, he held still, taken back, even. And for a moment, even if it was just a mere moment, he saw a delightful olive green flash through those normally crimson eyes. And yet red flooded green as it inevitably would, leaving him to wait again, if there was even anything to wait for. 

What did  _ he  _ mean?

What did  _ Hajime _ mean?

No, what did  _ Izuru  _ mean?

But it was too late. In a flash, he disappeared, leaving Nagito to wait, to wait, to wait.

Pandora’s box? Was it really the truth? That the hope he so desperately yearned for, the hope that was the only thing keeping his sick excuse of a body alive, was it truly the greatest despair? 

Had it really ever been about  _ hope?  _

No, he was the one, the one who feared to come out the box.

He was the one, dragged down by his own malice and pain. It weighed like the very iron chain around his neck, pulling him deeper and deeper, back into the endless spiral of fortune and misfortune. 

And that had been the reason for it all. 

He was weighed down, by the past, by the one he had finally been able to trust, and by the true despair that scoured the world.

That’s why he didn’t have the strength to reach out, no matter how desperate his struggles were.

**Author's Note:**

> Afterthoughts and some explanation.
> 
> I thought it might be interesting to do sort of a philosophical character study on Nagito, and when I saw that quote mentioned earlier in the fic, I couldn’t help myself.
> 
> This work definitely isn’t one of my finest, but it was very interesting to think about so many different things and compare them to Izuru. But, I truly hope you enjoyed reading this! 
> 
> On an afternote, I did feel the ending was a little rushed, so if you have any notes on how I could’ve wrapped this up differently, I’d love to hear them!
> 
> Now, onto some explanations
> 
> Ink Stain: I felt that I could compare something dark in color to Izuru pretty well, and this is what I came up with. The ink flows down into a dark puddle…
> 
> Hope: I wrote a whole lot about hope in this fic, but I figure that’s a given because 1. it’s a danganronpa fic and 2. it’s a nagito fic. I 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 you didn’t find it annoying, though.
> 
> Porcelain doll: It is said in UDG and SDR2 that Nagito likes beautiful things (SDR2) and pretty things (UDG). I thought of a pretty thing I could compare to Izuru, and the first thing that really came to mind was a porcelain doll. I’m glad that whole analogy worked out, at least somewhat. 
> 
> Shoulders: NaGItO iS tHE rEaSoN tHeY haVE nO sHoUlDEr dReSs CoDeS aT SCHOolS. In all actuality, this scene was inspired by the Edward/Winry scene in full metal alchemist: brotherhood where Winry watched Edward walk away and simply thinks “were his shoulders always that broad?”
> 
> The quote: This inspired the title of the fic despite not having that much influence in it, and it was written by K.J. Parker in Sharps 
> 
> love you all :)


End file.
